Moby Dick: or, the White Whale eBook

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning
the populousness of the more enormous creatures of
the globe, yet what shall we say to Harto, the historian
of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the King
of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions
elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate
climes. And there seems no reason to doubt that
if these elephants, which have now been hunted for
thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal,
and by all the successive monarchs of the East—­
if they still survive there in great numbers, much
more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since
he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely
twice as large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe
and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the
sea combined.

Moreover: we are to consider, that from the
presumed great longevity of whales, their probably
attaining the age of a century and more, therefore
at any one period of time, several distinct adult
generations must be contemporary. And what this
is, we may soon gain some idea of, by imagining all
the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of
creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men,
women, and children who were alive seventy-five years
ago; and adding this countless host to the present
human population of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale
immortal in his species, however perishable in his
individuality. He swam the seas before the continents
broke water; he once swam over the site of the Tuileries,
and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s
flood he despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the
world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands,
to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still
survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the
equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the
skies.

CHAPTER 106

Ahab’s Leg

The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had
quitted the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been
unattended with some small violence to his own person.
He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of
his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering
shock. And when after gaining his own deck, and
his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled
round with an urgent command to the steersman (it
was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly
enough); then, the already shaken ivory received such
an additional twist and wrench, that though it still
remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet
Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.

And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that
for all his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab, did
at times give careful heed to the condition of that
dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it
had not been very long prior to the Pequod’s
sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one
night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible;
by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable
casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced,
that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced
his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that
the agonizing wound was entirely cured.